Gunshots erupted outside apartments and rockets screamed across city blocks. Smoke engulfed planes at the airport and shells crashed into a military tower. Two rival Sudanese generals have transformed a city of five million people into an arena for their personal war.
The clashes have pitted a paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces against the Sudanese Army, reflecting a longstanding rivalry between Sudan’s two top generals who have been vying for dominance.
The eruption of violence on Saturday in Sudan’s capital and other parts of the country has dashed hopes that civilians could soon take leadership of a democratic government, the goal of mass protests four years ago. In 2019, Sudanese protesters and the military toppled the country’s authoritarian leader, President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, offering hope to similar movements in Africa and the Arab world.
After Mr. al-Bashir’s rule ended, the military signed a power-sharing agreement, but then took over with a coup in 2021. One of Africa’s largest countries, where the United States and its allies have tried to aid a transition to civilian control, is now reeling from a new crisis that many fear could become full-blown civil war.
Where is the fighting?
Most of the fighting appears to be taking place in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, but there have been clashes reported across the vast country — Africa’s third-largest by area, with more than 45 million people.
The civilian death toll from the fighting rose to at least 300 on Wednesday, with more than 3,000 civilians injured, according to the World Health Organization.
In Khartoum, the fighting has left many people stranded at home without electricity or water, and doctors and hospitals say they are struggling to cope. Fighting has been reported near the presidential palace, and it was still not clear who — if anyone — was in control of the country.
Who are the rival generals?
The leader of one of the two main rival factions is Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, a powerful military commander who has for years been a de facto leader of Sudan.
Little known before 2019, General al-Burhan had been closely aligned with Sudan’s longtime ruler, Mr. al-Bashir, and rose to power in the tumultuous aftermath of the popular uprisings that led to the ousting of Mr. al-Bashir.
Violence in Sudan
Fighting between two military factions in Sudan has thrown the country into chaos, with plans for a transition to a civilian-led democracy now in shambles.
At the time the inspector general of the armed forces, General al-Burhan had also served as a regional army commander in Darfur, in western Sudan, when 300,000 people were killed and millions of others displaced in fighting from 2003 to 2008 that drew worldwide condemnation for its human rights violations and humanitarian toll.
After civilians and the military signed a power-sharing agreement in 2019, General al-Burhan became the chairman of the Sovereignty Council, a body created to oversee the country’s transition to democratic rule. But as the date for the handover of control to civilians got closer in late 2021, General al-Burhan proved reluctant to relinquish power; in October of that year, he and other military leaders carried out a coup.
General al-Burhan’s main rival is Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, who leads the country’s Rapid Support Forces, a powerful paramilitary group.
Of humble origins, General Hamdan, widely known as Hemeti, rose to prominence as a commander of the notorious janjaweed militias, which were responsible for the worst atrocities of the conflict in Darfur. His success in crushing the revolt there earned him the favor of Mr. al-Bashir, who in 2013 appointed him as head of the newly created Rapid Support Forces.
In October 2021, General al-Burhan and General Hamdan united to seize power in the coup, making them effectively the leader and deputy leader of Sudan. But in recent months, they have publicly fallen out, clashing in public and quietly deploying extra troops and equipment to military camps in Khartoum and across the country.
American and other foreign officials had been leading efforts to persuade the two generals to transfer power to a civilian-led government.
Why are many other countries invested in the conflict?
Sudan is strategically located, just south of Egypt and bordered by other countries, some threatened by instability.
As Sudan inched toward democracy and out of decades of isolation, the United States had lifted its designation as a state sponsor of terrorism.
In recent months, a host of foreign officials, from the United Nations, the African Union, the Arab League and the European Union, as well as the United States, had been scrambling to negotiate an agreement between the two generals and pressed them to allow a transition to a civilian-led government, as promised.
Russia also had interests in Sudan, where operatives with the Kremlin-affiliated Wagner network were advising the military-dominated government, and getting access to lucrative gold mining operations. Russia was also pressing Sudan for permission to allow Russian warships to dock at ports on the country’s Red Sea coastline.
There are now fears that the new chaos could draw in neighboring countries. In one murky episode, General Hamdan’s forces captured at least 30 Egyptian soldiers and seven warplanes at an air base in Merowe, 125 miles north of Khartoum.
Egypt said the soldiers were in Sudan on a training exercise. A relative of General Hamdan’s said by phone that the detained soldiers were mostly pilots and aircraft mechanics who had come to Sudan to carry out airstrikes on behalf of the Sudanese military. Those claims could not be verified, but the events made clear the volatility of the conflict.
And the violence has already spread deep into Darfur, the Spain-size region that for 20 years has been tormented by its own cycle of conflict. Darfur is home to several rebel groups that could get sucked into the fight, and it has also been a base for the Wagner network.
Both the United Nations World Food Program and the International Rescue Committee, a nonprofit aid group, have reported the deaths of aid workers. The U.N. group announced an immediate suspension of all programs in Sudan, where one-third of the country’s population is in need of food aid.
“The humanitarian situation in Sudan was already precarious and is now catastrophic,” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said on Monday.
Reporting was contributed by Declan Walsh and Abdi Latif Dahir.
